The Future is Wild
by Orson Zedd
Summary: After the defeat of Fuse, Dexter becomes more depressed. Can Ben help the world's most remarkable man fix his problems, or will he make them worse?  Oh, don't act surprised. It's a story; of course things get worse! That's the whole point of a climax!
1. Ben to the Future

Months had passed since the end of the war against Lord Fuse. While the planet recovered slowly, the grand halls of DexLabs became significantly emptier. This had come as a great relief to its proprietor, Dexter boy genius, a man who had mastered every science except the social ones. The great hoards of children running around tended to grate his nerves. Their absence did not go missed.

"So why do I feel lousy?" Dexter though aloud. The words, while quiet, were not drowned out. He even managed to hear its faint echo.

Not everyone had left. His parents had taking a liking to life in DexLabs, regarding their old home as something of a curiosity. His family still pranked him whenever they got half a chance. He'd often wonder why they wouldn't light up while he was fighting a war for the sake of humanity. Expectedly their pranks had, in recent months, become far more elaborate. Luckily, he wasn't left with them. Many core team members had stayed around to help with the clean up, but the cleanup crews themselves had been in-sourced, and weren't the wide-eyed children and malevolently destructive teenagers he'd grown to know and tolerate.

The Utonium family naturally stayed. DexLabs wasn't far from Townsville, so even though the Powerpuff Girls had school, he was seeing them quite frequently. It was somewhat of a relief, if he were being honest. It was nice to be treated like the super special intergalactic warlord and arms dealer he'd become.

Sector V and Ben Tennyson had not stayed. Sector V he knew had business to attend to, and someone needed to reintegrate children back to a relatively normal life.

Ben's departure had been harder. Not that Dexter didn't understand that there were more alien threats ready in the wings to conquer the planet. He just sort of thought the two of them would be doing it together, "you know, cause we're best friends and all..." he trailed off when he'd realized he'd finished a though audibly. He looked around to make sure no one had heard him.

"He'll be back Dex," said a voice from around the corner. He too stepped into the main balcony, overlooking the command room of DexLabs.

"Waaah, Professor! You didn't hear anything!"

"For what it's worth, I miss everyone too."

Dexter sighed that sigh everyone does when people finally have to admit sad truths to themselves.

Recognizing that sound Utonium continued, "If it's any consolation, there's a pretty good chance the world will need saving again."

The tiny misanthrope inside Dexter hoped this would be true sooner rather than later.

It was several weeks later that Ben arrived. Dexter had organized his greatest discoveries by how much they revolutionized Earth's technology or chronologically, whichever was more alphabetical. The very first thing Dexter did when Ben arrived was hug, what amounted to, Ben's lower torso. Dexter might have been heads and shoulders above everyone intellectually, but was small enough he could still, had he ever decided to, climb in the ball pit at Chubby Cheese's.

"Oh man, Dex, I didn't know you felt that way about me."

Dexter let go and said, sheepishly, "Sorry it's just, er..."

"I missed you too, buddy. So, what'd I miss?"

Dexter elaborated on the clean up. He told how Townsville Park had basically been closed to the public. Apparently the fissure had unearthed some interesting strata, with a matrix full of prehistoric fauna. He detailed the systematic recall of the Null Void Guns from all, now former, employees of DexLabs.

Their conversation moved to Dexter's work bench. Ben plopped himself down on the nearest sturdy looking object, with reckless disregard for what it might do to a human body.

"Sounds like you've had your hands full," Ben assumed.

"Not as much as you might think," Dexter's inflection fell to a sharp whine. "I must admit, I've become very restless lately." Dexter's eyes turned to his work, as they often did when dealing with emotions.

"Man, you really did miss me, didn't you?" Ben conjectured.

"Is that all you ever think about? It's not just you, you know!" Dexter shouted in his speaking voice. Ben looked at Dexter with the quizzical head turned he'd once learned from a dog. "I see my joke fell a little flat," Dexter said with a nervous chuckle.

"Come on, what we need to do is call up some old friends and hang out," Ben suggested, "What do you say?"

"I don't know," said Dexter, "but what, what if they don't want to talk to me?"

"Why wouldn't they? You know, aside from you being bossy, and a pain, and self-centered?"

Dexter shot back a deadpan grimace.

"Well, I suppose we could do a video phone date?"

Dexter's voice sounded more nasal than verbal, before squeaking out, "I suppose…"

The video screen in Dexter's lab came to life. While it was of the highest definition, only so much could be done about the webcam on the other end. The two ends of the feed stared at one another for a few moments before anyone spoke.

"Good going, Lunkhead, you broke it," said the shortest of the three people on the monitor, the former king of the cul-de-sac.

"No, it's working, hey guys!" said Ben, looking at the screen and not the camera, which was somewhat to his left. Dexter grabbed him and rearranged him properly.

"Salutations, Ben… why are you calling from Dexlabs?" said the be-socked Edd.

"AHEM," said a voice decidedly off-screen. A Dexbot brought a box for Dexter to stand on, so the boy genius would be seen as well as heard.

"What's the egghead doing on here?" asked Eddy.

"Quiet Eddy; so, Dexter, how have you been?"

"I've been… fine…"

Awkward silence fell over the group. Edd sweated sweat of nervousness. Ed sweated too, but mostly because that was what he felt like doing.

Ben nudged Dexter's shoulder, "Go on; say something."

"Ah, yeees, thank you for helping me test my new web relay system," Dexter smiled a nervous smile. It wasn't anything to get up in front of an army and give a rousing speech, but when it came to reconnecting with friends, he was at a bit of a loss.

"Oh, well, call again!" said Double D.

The connection ceased and the monitor turned off. Ben turned around to Dexter, templing his fingers and pointing.

"Do you," Ben had to search hard for the right words, as doing so was unusual for him, "mind telling me what that was?"

"Ah heh, conversation?" Dexter said with a nervous chuckle.

"Uh, no, no that wasn't," Ben sighed and tried again. "Alright, let's try this again. This time I want you to ask a question."

Another call was made.

"Yeah, what is it you want, Dextah?" snapped Wallabee Beatles.

"To… talk?" Dexter said.

"Well, make it snappy, we've got work to do."

"Eeeaaauh, I'll call back."

Again the screen turned off. Ben sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

After an incredibly unsuccessful half hour of calling up basically anyone who was available to talk to Dexter, Ben decided it might be more productive if they tried learning interpersonal communication skills from cable television. It certainly wasn't his best idea, but it was nowhere near his worst.

"News… We're going to watch the news…" said Ben with disdain for Dexter's selection.

Dexter lifted a finger, "It is important to be well informed on current events, Benjamin."

Recalling the frequency of the times he had run into battle before knowing how, or even if, he could defeat his enemy, Ben said, "That's… not a bad point, but does it have to be cable news?"

"Tonight, on the Harangue Nation," the television blared.

"Not this clown. Why in the world do you watch this guy?" Ben asked, the distaste clear in his voice.

"I don't, normally," the disdain for giving Will Harangue's parent network any ad revenue apparent, "but I was told I might want to watch tonight."

"and DexLab's CEO Dexter. Is this boy genius all wrong for America?"

And then it became clear.

Will Harangue started, "Our top story tonight, Dexter: Boy Genius or Boy Menace? Joining us in this discussion is General Julius Steel of the United States Armed Forces, Mr. Boss, the CEO of adult interests, and Mayor, the mayor of Townsville, the hometown of DexLab's headquarters, thank you all for coming."

Everyone one of the three said some variation of, "It's great to be here!" that sounded, somewhat, like, "Egggarrbeaah."

"General Steel, we'll start with you. It's been five months since Planet Fuse left Earth thanks, almost entirely to the efforts of 13 year old multibillionaire Dexter and the actions of secretive, extra government services. Can you tell us the Armed Forces' position on this matter?"

"Thank you, Harangue. I would like to take this opportunity to make it clear that Dexter is a war criminal. He waged war without declaration on an entire race using an army of minors. Why, he's no better than warlords in Uganda who kidnap children to serve in their armies."

"Thank you, sir. Mr. Boss, could you tell us your position on Dexter's rise to financial power?"

"Certainly, Will. Dexter is a menace. His company took business from legitimate, established companies, by competing in a global and galactic arms market, rather than going through the proper channels and selling his technology to the Pentagon or other companies, so, you know, we could sell them to the Pentagon for him, and certainly not reverse engineer his advances for our own financial gain."

"Thank you. Mayor Mayor, could you tell us how DexLabs has affected your city?"

"Wooah, well, golly. Business is a-boomin'! Our schools are state of the art, and all of our public utilities are more efficient than ever thanks to…"

Mayor paused as a red clad arm shoved another note card in his hand, "the taxes paid out by DexLabs. It's probably the best thing that's ever happened to Townsville. Definitely makes the weekly destructions easier to deal…"

"Cut his mike! Cut his mike!" shouted Harangue, "I'm sorry folks, I didn't realize we'd have a biased individual on this program. This wasn't fair to you, and I take full responsibility."

The television was turned off. Apparently there's just a level of despair the human body can take, and it had been reached.

"Is that what's been getting to you, Dex? Look I know how much it sucks to get harangued by Will Harangue, but who honestly cares what he thinks?"

"It's not what he thinks, Ben, it's what others think of me."

"What? That you're a renegade billionaire war criminal?"

"Well, sort of, yeah," Dexter sighed, "It's just am I a good person?"

"Not that you don't have some personality problems, but you aren't evil, Dex. I bet you anything, in 30 years, you'll be a national treasure."

"You think so?" A knowing grin crossed Dexter's face. "Why don't we find out, old chum?"

Dexter had his driver take himself and Ben to Genius Grove, the location of his old house, and old Lab. The lights inside had been off for a while now. The lightswitch creaked when flipped, illuminating the livingroom he hadn't seen in some time. Dexter ran up the stairs just like he used, making the run much faster than when he was younger, thanks mostly to his, admittedly paltry, height.

The bookcase slid open, and the lights in the lab turned on. Dexter saw a silhouette against the sterile light. "Deedee!" he shouted, "Get out of my laboratory!" But it was just Ben, who had turned into the necrofridgian, Big Chill, so he could simply phase through the walls, enter the lab, and get a rise out of his friend.

"Wow, do you say that a lot?" Ben conjectured.

"Nevermind that. Okay, I need you to help me find something that looks like a grandfather clock, okay?"

It wasn't that hard of a search, really. Unlike most of Dexter's greatest creations, this one didn't wind up in some decrepit part of the infinitely large laboratory. Time travel was an incredible feat, and unlike most scientists, Dexter never really worried that his inventions would fall into the wrong hands.

After a bit of testing to make sure nothing was broken, Dexter spoke, "Okay, Ben, we're just going into the future for a short jaunt, we'll see how cool I…"

"We."

"We are, and then we'll head back home, full in the knowledge that no one will harangue us."

"Wait, won't we not be in the future? I mean, we're going to the future now, so won't we not exist in the future until we get back?"

"No, almost certainly we'll still be in the future. No worries there."

As soon as the two had stepped in the portal, they had stepped out. The room looked much like it had when they left, aside from disrepair. They left their house, noting that there was no lighting. This wasn't incredibly unexpected. Why pay for an electricity bill if you aren't living somewhere?

It wasn't explicitly obvious something was wrong until they stepped outside. Around them, the soil was as red as clay and fired, too. "But I don't understand; where is everything?"

"You did it! You finally did it!" Ben shouted, never missing a good time for references, "You blew it all to Hell!"

"I hope I didn't do this," said Dexter, sheepishly.

"How could you have? You're here!"

"Time travel doesn't work like that, Tennyson. Maybe I am a warmonger…"


	2. Adventure Time with Ben and Dex

The wasteland stretched as far as any of Ben's numerous transformations could see. The red clay, pockmarked with ruined buildings and destroyed infrastructure must have extended for dozens of miles in any direction. The one exception was the ocean, though it was not in the greatest of shape itself, they concluded from its dark green waters.

After several minutes of surveying, Ben returned to the ground and his human form, he then offered up a suggestion.

"Okay, it's pretty bad, I won't lie," then to mitigate it in his own special way, "but maybe we can go back to the past and stop you from ruining the future."

"Thank you, Benjamin, for that vote of confidence," Dexter snapped. "But there's only one problem with your brilliantly worded suggestion. We don't even know what the heck caused this."

"So, what you're saying is, we need to stick around and find out what you did?"

Dexter grated his teeth a bit. "Yyyes."

So Ben and Dex went out to find what went wrong on a journey that would be both dangerous and long. There's little else, all up in this wasteland; only the two, to give each other a hand. Dexter's wrench leaves a trail over hill and dale to help him find his way back. "The point Ben is to help us find our way on the return trek." A fissure, oh no, they'll have to go around! But Jetray might be the key, just go across, up, and then down. They know they should have stayed, and not gone to the future, but Dexter was upset, and looking for a little cloture, and now it seems, he has a duty to fix up this mess. Ben keeps ripping on Dex, but maybe that's for the best.

There go those boys, walking on fired clay ground; trying to save the future, I'm sure they'll figure something out.

The red clay gave way to a dead forest. It might have been easy to mistake this destruction for the same kind of ruin that had befallen the greater Townsville area. One telling detail was the soil. Though still red from the lack of mulch, was now host to several creeping plants, carpeting the floor. Further in, living trees began appearing, along with non-invasive plant species.

"Maybe it was just Townsville that was destroyed?" postulated Ben.

"Possible, but unlikely," said Dexter, "I've seen them rebuild the city in a day before. They have the best contractors and engineers in the world."

The slight sound of rustling branches caught the boys' attention. With very little time to react, two squat red robots swooped in on them firing poorly aimed lasers at the two. With the agility of a ninja, Dexter shot them down with his electro-wrench.

"It's hero," Ben cut himself off, "oh that was easy." Ben returned his omnitrix to standby mode.

"Yes, you do seem to waste useful time calling your transformations," said Dexter, as he experimentally probed one of the downed robots.

"I take it those weren't cleaning robots. I guess this means someone is around."

Dexter pulled a panel off of one of the robots bottoms and flipped it around. "And I have a good idea who." Dexter flipped the panel around to show Ben.

"Product of DexLabs. It's always a fine day for science," Ben read aloud for no one's benefit but his own. "You made this thing?"

"So it would appear. I must admit, it does heavily resemble a DexBot, but I can't remember ever outfitting them with energy weapons." Heavy realization crossed his face.

"Look just because you made the robot, doesn't mean you're some kind of Saturday morning supervillain," Ben offered. "Those could have been anyone's weapons."

Dexter pried off one of the weapons from the fallen DexBot and handed it to Ben. "Null Void Gun, made by DexLabs; it's always a fine day for science," Ben read. "This doesn't prove anything. I mean, even if you were trying to kill us, why would you destroy DexLabs along with the rest of Townsville?"

"I made it a point to recall all Null Void Guns on the planet after the defeat of Fuse, there's no way anyone else could have had one."

"Yeah, I'm sure no government agencies were able to pull a fast one on you," said Ben, oozing with sarcasm.

"Of course they didn't, I catalogued all their serial numbers! Their locations were all known!" Dexter shouted.

"Forgive me for not thinking you're infallible, oh mighty Dexter. How could I ever have doubted you?"

"Because you are stupid! You are Stupid! And don't forget, you are STUPID!"

Their argument provided the perfect cover for their stalkers to knock them unconscious with a relatively low degree of difficulty.

The most painful part of being bludgeoned unconscious is waking up, for one reason or another. Perhaps the excruciating pain is significantly easier to deal with while not cognizant. Regardless, when he woke up, Ben said, "Ow, my head." The room was dark with two dim lights shining on himself and Dexter. Both were tied to, possibly, the most uncomfortable chairs in the world.

"Oh, good, you're awake," said Dexter, "Maybe you can do something about us GETTING THE HECK OUT OF HERE."

Ben stretched his right hand as far as he could. "No use. Whoever tied us up knew what they were doing."

"They are awake" said a staticy and distorted voice.

"Who's there?" asked Dexter.

A brief pause descended in the room, "Who do you work for?" asked another distorted voice.

"The Plumbers, sort of," said Ben.

"I like to think I'm a bit of a self made man, actually, but maybe… the board of directors for DexLabs?" posited Dexter.

"Is… this kid serious?" asked the first distorted voice.

"If they're clones, they're good, real good," replied the second.

"THE BOSS MAN COMETH!" shouted a distorted voice, to the point of being unintelligible.

Dexter and Ben exchanged confused glances. On the positive side, they were significantly less worried if this was their interrogator. Although, perhaps, they did have to worry about being confused to death. A few minutes passed before they heard anything else. When they finally did, it wasn't the sound they expected. Instead, they heard the door open, and the low hum of large halogen bulbs warming up. As they began to make out their concrete confinement, something pulled on their ropes, snapping them. Ben bolted up right, still mostly attached to his chair. His ropes slipped out of the chair, causing it to crash to the ground and splinter. Conversely, Dexter took a more methodical approach, and removed his bonds carefully, leaving his rugged chair intact.

Speaking of rugged, the two turned to face their liberators. The two liberators were ripped, a veritable sea of muscles, stretching from one shoulder to another, and down as far as their hands. One had brunette hair and beard. On his wide chest, he wore a white and black tee-shirt, and a watch with The Plumber's hourglass on it. The other had no hair on his head at all, but a thick safety orange beard. The rest of his attire were goggles, a black shirt, pants, and boots, purple gloves, and, most telling, a cut off labcoat. Immediately, Dexter and Ben knew who they were looking at.

"I still look pretty cool in the future," they said in unison.

Then Dexter broke away, "Hey, wait, why did you try and shoot us in the forest?"

"It wasn't us, old chum," said the older Ben.

"Yes, those robots had been tracking us for weeks, to discover the location of our hidden base," said the older Dexter.

"But that was our technology!" exclaimed Dexter, "What the heck happened there? I thought we took care of all the loose ends."

"Yes, well, not all the loose ends, I'm afraid," replied the elder Dexter. "Come, we have much to show!"


	3. The Foster Home

Dexter and Ben led themselves outside of the brig, into the brilliant light. Considering the the last time they'd seen daylight, the sun had begun to set and that he himself wasn't stomach-digesting-itself hungry, Dexter wondered aloud, "How could it possibly be day?"

The elder Dexter talked to his watch, "Mr. Edd, could you tell us the time?"

Slightly annoyed, though not totally unfamiliar with or surprised at such a mundane request, the master of operations replied, "Certainly. The time is currently 20:41. Next time I suggest you check the display inst-," he was cut off.

"That's impossible!" said Dexter and Ben at once. Dexter motioned that Ben should speak for the both of them out of politeness, "Everyone knows there's not a 20 o'clock." Dexter immediately regretted this.

"Oh, but it's quite possible, me!" the elder Dexter explained, "The light you see is the radiant free energy of the neurotomic protocore which powers all of Dextopia!"

"Conceited much?" asked the younger Ben.

Dexter grumbled. "Where are we, exactly?"

"A quarter of a mile under the forest, old chum!" said the elder Ben.

"Yes, incidentally," stated the older Dexter, "a couple of DexBots were destroyed. Do either of you know what happened?" he asked.

The younger versions did their sheepishest to indicate that they did not, and any damaged irreplaceable technology found on the surface world was like that when they got there. Maybe it had been wolves or bears that evolved EMPs in the past thirty years.

"All the same! Come on, let's get you food and a room!" the elder Ben said with unwaivering enthusiasm.

"Hey me, can I ask you something?" said Ben to the side.

"Certainly!"

"What's with old Dexter's head?"

The elder Ben rubbed Dexter's hair, "You know Dex, you've hardly changed at all!" He showed his younger self the loose hairs he'd coaxed out.

The four continued to something that resembled an enclosure carved in the side of the cave. All along the wall were circular windows reminiscent of the houses from _The Flintstones_, but perfectly circular. The four stood squarely in the middle, in front of the structure's large, automatic door.

"We'll have Ms. Foster board the two of you for a while you stay," said the elder Dexter.

"Stay, a but, but..." Dexter objected without managing to say anything.

"Come on, Dex, could be fun. Besides, it's dark out there and, aside from us, no food," Ben noted.

The door opened, and a middle aged woman stepped out. Her once vibrant red hair, speckled with gray but, for the most part, she was the same Frankie Foster Dexter remembered and that Ben would have if he thought about it long enough. It wasn't long before she nagged, "Let me guess, you've got more strays for me to take care of."

"Something like that, Frankie," grinned the bald Dexter.

"Make sure they get a good meal. I'll know if they don't!" the elder Ben chuckled.

As the two walked off into the artificial sunlight, Ben thought aloud, "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be feeling, but this is actually pretty cool, Dex."

"Ugh, you wouldn't be saying that if you lived here," snapped Frankie. "Johnny!"

Moving at impossible and relativistic speeds, one man bellhop, custodian, and handy-man, Johnny Bravo appeared. "You rang, mamasita?"

"Show these two to Room 63," Frankie handed Ben a heavily recycled piece of gray paper on which was printed a menu. Breakfast begins at 06:30.

Ben scanned the menu. A look of disgust came over his face, "Chowder's Scrambled Schmeggs?"

"His food's better than you remember, believe me," Frankie said as she walked off to, presumably, her office or someplace else Ben quickly decided he'd rather not go in alone, given a choice.

Johnny led the two to their room. Much like the rest of their house, the air was stale from poor circulation and the walls were only warmed by geothermal heating. All the same, the décor was efficient. Aside from the materials it was made of, in this case, polished rock, it could easily have been mistaken for the living quarters on a spaceship, with its two beds, one a top the other, and underneath the rock table counter, a fairly standard bureau made out of reeds. Its purpose was, presumably, for the extra clothes Dexter and Ben hadn't thought to bring.

Ben did really pay attention, "I call top bunk!" an arrangement which would undoubtedly change the first time he hit his head on the rock ceiling.

"Alright, well if you kids need anything, just holler, and ol' Johnny will bring it to ya," Johnny said.

Though they hadn't eaten, they seemed to agree rather quickly it would be better to go to bed hungry, as the alternative seemed to be having Johnny successfully complete a fairly simple task.

Ben crawled into his bed and began staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head to help tenderize his pillow the way he liked it. "Hey Dex, mind if I pick at your brain?"

"Certainly, but if it starts bleeding, stop." Dexter's jokes were never very funny.

"Everything's so different than how I remember it. Even me!"

"Well, Benjamin," Dexter began talking down to his friend, "It has been thirty years; you're bound to have some character growth between then and now."

"Not exactly what I mean," Ben noted. "I meant the last time I was in the future. For starts, everything wasn't all destroyed and I didn't have anything resembling a personality. Is it different from how you remember?"

Dexter avoided telling him how the ruins of Townsville were pretty similar both this and the last time he was here, "Don't you remember any of the experiments we did with the time machine last year?"

"Nuh-uh," Ben said, "I don't really remember a lot of anything, to be honest."

"Well, it's like this. Whatever we do in the past changes the future. So by virtue of having gone to the future, you altered the eventual outcome," Dexter explained.

"Huh, so I guess it's different for you, too. That's cool." Ben chuckled, "I've been worried for a long time now that Kevin was going to turn evil again and try to kill me."

"Really?" Dexter asked pointedly.

"Well, eviler, anyway."

Dexter rarely dreamed, but he did this night. His mind recalled the night he discovered, what he called at the time, Gooey Aliens. He was certain he'd sabotaged the transceiver, too…

NOTES: I'm taking a look at the formatting, and I don't like how every paragraph is one or two lines on a monitor of any reasonable size. Does anyone have a technique I could borrow?


	4. The Future is Aku

What are you guys waiting for? An invitation on embossed paper, maybe with a wax seal that looks like Mickey Mouse, kinda, if you squint? Come on, just because I don't tell you to give me criticism doesn't mean to not do it. Hell, post whatever you want. Cute stories, photographs of your cats. Maybe a dirty limerick or two, I don't mind. But seriously, this is not my best work. Lemme know my sense of ability is not well deserved. Help a man out?

When he was younger, Dexter had been somewhat more… porcine. Perhaps it was that his baby fat had not yet left or perhaps it was that his diet had not yet been altered to include a healthy serving of vegetables at ever meal. All the same, in recent years, he'd managed to work himself ragged. He was now coming to terms with having not eaten since lunch the previous day… or thirty years ago. Whichever made more sense.

"Gashashmoodien! I'm so hungry, I could even eat Chowder's cooking," he said shoveling the first bite of scrambled schmeggs into his mouth. Ben carefully watched Dexter's face as it changed expression over and over. Finally with tears in his eyes, Dexter swallowed.

"It's not as bad as I remember," said Ben.

"Yeah, it's so much… worse."

"An acquired taste, maybe," said Ben, who by now has nearly finished his rations.

"Kind of wished he'd stop giving the ingredients stupid names by now," Dexter opined.

It wasn't long before Dexter and Ben, the older Dexter and Ben, arrived at Foster's Home. The other Dexter and Ben noticed their arrival before they could tell what had happened. The excited shrieks of children emanated from the main room. And as soon as Ben asked, "What's all the commotion about?" he found out.

The older Dexter and Ben entered the kitchen, followed by a throng of children, holding out scraps of paper and knit dolls of, for the most part, their favorite form of Ben. There were neither one of the younger men could recognize because they were so poorly made. You'd almost think Dextopia had to be self sustaining for some heretofore unexplained reason.

"Hello us, did you sleep well?" asked the older Ben.

Dexter and Ben vaguely indicated that they couldn't complain really, although there were questions that certainly needed to be answered and anytime would be good, but preferably something soon.

As they left Foster's Home, their mundane exchanges suddenly became relevant.

"Today is orientation, us," said the older Dexter.

The younger Ben looked rather nonplussed by the statement, "That's a big fancy word that means we'll be catching everyone up to speed!" his older counterpart said with considerable enthusiasm for something fairly mundane.

"Oh, cool. Hey, guys, we need to start calling you guys something else. It's sort of getting confusing for me…"

"Oh…kay, why us, exactly?" asked the older Dexter.

"Because it'd just be confusing to start calling Dexter something else, plus I bet Dexter's had some trouble with there being two Bens, right buddy?"

"No, not really," the younger Dexter said, "I haven't exactly gone out of my way to have to talk to more than one of you. You're pretty overwhelming on your own."

Had he said this to any other two of the same people, they might have taken offense, but instead, they just beamed, prideful of their frequent idiocy.

"What did you have in mind, chums?" asked the older Ben.

"Well, last time I saw myself in the future, he… I… the older Ben used the alias Ben 10,000, so I vote we call him that."

"Wicked! What about Dexter?"

"Cool Dexter. Because he's Dexter, but cool."

Regular Dexter took immediate offense. "HEY, I'm cool!" Cool Dexter shook his head. "I'm cool," he said a second time to, presumably, reassure his ego.

A brief and awkward pause descended on the group. It was only the overeager enthusiasm of Ben 10k that got the ball rolling, "Well, that neurotomic protocore won't burn forever!"

"Well, it will," Cool Dexter pointed out, "But your point is taken. Come, us. It is a fine day for learning!"

This was the first time Ben had really taken the time to notice Dextopia. Buildings carved out of solid rock and differentiated only by their paint reached up to, what appeared to be, the sky. It was probably painted to look that way, he reasoned.

"The buildings provide structural integrity to all of Dextopia," Cool Dexter said.

"No penthouses, huh? That's a real shame." Ben took a look at the streets. The layout was different than what he was used to. The buildings made a grid, and were rarely side-by-side. Maybe this was to evenly distribute the weight of the ground above or some design aesthetic to relieve traffic. He hadn't seen proper cars yet, but he wouldn't be surprised if Cool Dexter had jury-rigged up some automatic rickshaws or ox-less wagons. Maybe no one else was up yet. It was still seven in the morning, which was an incredibly unreasonable time to be awake. In fact, until today he didn't even know there was a seven in the morning, though he always sort of assumed there was one.

"Hey, Cool Dex, what are all those trees over there?" asked Ben.

"Ah, that's the public ar**bor**etum!" he said stressing the wrong syllable, as though he weren't a native English speaker. Which he was. So that was weird.

In one of the rocky spires of a building was a movie theatre. Dexter quickly made his way to the front row, neverminding the lack of competition, presumably because he loved degenerative disc disorders. All the same Ben sat down beside him, with an unreasonably large drink and popcorn.

"Are you sure you need all that? It is just an orientation video," Dexter wondered.

"Sure. I'll need something to do between naps, and if it is interesting, popcorn," Ben explained. Dexter didn't follow his logic since, even if Dexter were normal, Ben's idea of normal was a caricature of regular normal.

"The following presentation is brought to you by DexLabs. DexLabs: It's Always a Fine Day for Science."

The video, Ben immediately noticed, was narrated by Cool Dexter. This wasn't a massive surprise, honestly. If Dexter's ego were cash money, the child would be twice as rich as he currently was.

"Long ago in the world above, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed upon the world unspeakable evil! The world's heroes hastily rallied to oppose him. But none of our attacks were effective. Many were lost in the fight, and shall not be forgotten…"

Dexter reached over and stuffed his mouth full of the exploded kernels of replicated corn seeds.

The movie continued, "In retaliation, Aku rained fire down on Townsville, as a show of might to the rest of the world. Now he rules the planet unopposed; his evil, law. To preserve some hope of undoing the future that is Aku, Dexter and friend created this underground utopia. A memorial to those lost now resides in Hero Square at the center of Dextopia."

"'Dexter and friends'." Ben made airquotes, "I liked that bit. I don't think the narrator is biased at all, do you, Dexter?" Ben turned to notice his friend had vanished. Not wanting lose track of his friend nor to waste his food, he stuffed his mouth full of popcorn and washed it down with half his soda all at once before setting out to find where Dexter had gone.

Deciding that it might be easier for him to find Dexter if he split up, he dialed up an old standby on his Omnitrix and said, "Echo Echo", because announcing his transformations never got old for himself, anyway.

It took very little time for one of the little sonorosians to find Dexter at Hero Square and signal to the others his location, ultrasonically. Once he reassembled himself Ben approached Dexter.

"Hey look, holograms. Cool, Finn! Courage gets one too? Ooh…" Ben approached the one Dexter was brooding in front of. "Samurai Jack got a big one. I don't see me anywhere. Wonder what you have to do to get one?"

"Die," Dexter explained.


	5. The Allied Alliance of Allies

"Die?" Ben thought this was a rather steep price for getting a pretty sweet hologram statue. "Why doesn't the Grim Reaper just bring them back instead of giving me holo-statue envy?"

"I'm afraid he can't," said Cool Dexter.

"Wait! Why not?" whined Ben, still a little upset about not having a statue, but pretty happy he wasn't dead.

"You'd know that if you'd finished orientation!" said Ben 10,000 having transformed back from some flying, possibly aquatic alien Ben wasn't sure he'd ever seen before.

"Yeah, come on, Dex, we should go finish that up," Ben said, knowing full and well what being uninformed in any situation could mean.

"No time!" said Ben 10k, louder than necessary. "We've got to get to work! War against pure evil never rests."

"Except for about 8 hours every 24," Cool Dexter mentioned.

"Yes, except for that! And eating, sometimes! Oh, and number one or number two. Anyway! Ben, I will go with me to the training grounds!" Ben nodded at his future self, uncertain if he was being asked to go with or to lead.

The elder Dexter turned to himself and placed a reassuring glove on his own shoulder, "Do not worry, me. Together we can fix this problem yet."

As the Dexters left, the younger turned his head to memorize the fallen.

The Bens emerged from an elevator. Apparently Dextopia's fighting forces needed a bit more space to train or there'd been an incident in the past some time. All the same, this area was far more open, with scaffolding around most of the spires, and far more distance between the spires themselves.

"Welcome to the Alliance!" Ben 10k shouted, probably because he wanted to show off the acoustics. The Bens continued walking, "The combined forces of Earth that would have rather died than submit to the tyranny of Aku. There are Plumbers, trapped here when the planet was quarantined, the remains of Providence, which never really answered to anyone, what would have been called KND a few decades ago, and then some Urban Rangers for flavor."

"Really, Urban Rangers. Wonder what their specialty is…" said Ben somewhat unimpressed.

"The power of heart!" both Bens said simultaneously. They laughed, embarrassed slightly by their own nerdiness. "But seriously, they do good work," mentioned the older Ben, "and they all fight to stop the tyranny of Aku!"

"Yeah, wait, I thought Aku was just a myth, like Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth?" wondered Ben.

"You wish Aku was like them!" said Ben 10k with improper excitement. "Cthulhu doesn't have ambition!"

Two of the soldiers approached the Bens. "Ah, good morning, General," said the blonde.

His friend, the raven-haired one snapped, "Didn't realize it was bring your kid to work day…"

"Oh, er, no, it's not. Ken's probably at school now. Noah, Rex, this is myself from the past," the older Ben explained.

"Wicked," said Noah.

Rex asked in a sort of incurious tone, "So, like, if you give us extra tough training, I could emotionally scar your younger self?"

"Unlikely!" gwaffled the older Ben, "I was fairly impervious to surprise or shock!"

"Yeah, after your fifteenth save the universe moment, you stop being surprised," said the younger Ben, shrugging his shoulders.

"Meeting in thirty, men!" Gen. Ben said. The three soldiers saluted one another. "As you were."

Rex and Noah ran the way they had been heading before.

"Rank. I didn't even think about rank! Gen Ben is way better." said the younger Ben.

"Yes, I'm surprised you've already lost your affinity for rhyming," mentioned Ben 10,000.

"I seem to get it back, Ken Tennyson."

"Hey!" the older Ben objected. "I named him after a very good friend… that you haven't met yet…" His smile wasn't very convincing.

Truth was, Ben wasn't surprised by much of anything these days. It'd been years since anything legitimately scared him. It might have occurred to him that aliens and monsters destroying the planet was his life, something he lived for. But it didn't occur to him, because he really didn't care.

But he did care about something. He had anxieties, of course, but these days, they were almost always about others, especially, most recently, Dexter. Sure, the kid seems to turn out alright, but in the present that was the future, Dexter was still mopey as ever.

"Maybe all that sciencey wordy stuff will cheer him up," he thought aloud.

"Sorry, did you say something?" asked General Tennyson.

"Huh? Oh, no, I'm good."

Then the General remembered what he'd said all those years ago, "Oh, that's right. I was so gushy," he gushed.

Dexter found himself asking less questions than, perhaps, he'd expected to. He'd expected to ask some. So far, he'd asked none. The older Dexter wondered if he'd always been so neurotic. He concluded rather quickly that he had. He blamed his father for being an incredible jerk throughout the important developmental stages of his childhood, while conveniently ignoring how much like his father he had been to others.

The Dextopia Science Center was far larger than the other spires, and half buried in the wall of the cave. Unlike the other spires, it was unpainted, looking like an engraving of a university's logo from a distance. "Inside, the finest minds the future has to offer!" the elder Dexter beamed with pride.

The two entered. Pretty much everyone had crowded in the foyer, aware of the wonderful news Dexter would be sharing. The younger Dexter, however, spoke first, "Then why do they all look like the finest minds of the past?"

"Yeah, good luck getting a fancy college education without any higher learning," said a man the younger Dexter was almost a hundred percent positive was Hoagie Gilligan Jr., who proceeded to laugh at what, presumably, passed for humor in the future.

"Everyone, as you are aware, this is me," the older Dexter pointed out, "He may be able to help us defeat Aku once and for all!"

"Wait, so he's just you, with some three decades less experience and none of the battle experience? I'm extremely confident in our chances here," something told the younger Dexter that Hoagie wasn't joking this time.

"I disagree, Mr. Gilligan," said the echoing voice of a large transparent robot who Dexter, actually, didn't know and hadn't really noticed until it spoke. "While two computers might be fairly weak on their own, working together, they can compute far faster."

"Agreed, Octus," said the tall, gray, and balding scientist Dexter immediately recognized as his esteemed colleague Professor Utonium. "Son, I think young Dexter here might be exactly what we need to turn the tide of this war."

"Wait, did he say son?" Dexter thought. He looked up at his future self, who shot back a wink and thumbs up. Dexter decided not to press it further, subconsciously citing the great Emmitt L. Brown.

"Excellent. Onto business!" said Dexter. "Dr. Weasel, status report."

"Yes, sir. Intelligence indicates General Specific has moved his forces towards the remains of Townsville. It's almost a certainty that he's attempting to ascertain our location." Weasel clicked a wireless pointer. A projection screen displayed an image of the General's actions.

"Woah, isn't that a Sandcrawler from Star Wars?" Ben asked, earning him some somewhat derisive laughs.

"Young man, that is a type M-270 Mandark Industries drilling rig," snapped Corporal Beatles.

"Yeah, Wally. God forbid he doesn't know what something he's never seen is!" said Rex, who got a fist bump from his friend Noah.

The image began to move, with the drilling rig stopping every hundred meters or so to search the ground. "This is pretty bad, isn't it?" asked Ben.

"Well, it's not great, of course," answered Professor Utonium, "but you shouldn't worry. Much like your first lab, it's much bigger here than on the outside. General Specific is highly unlikely to hit us."

"And if he does, we'll hit him!" Hoss Delgado clenched his fist that wasn't always clenched.

"So what's the plan?" asked Juniper Lee.

"Watch the feed!" said Coop, kicking his feet up on the table in front of him.

Everyone looked at the feed to see their leader, Gen. Ben running over to the drilling rig. It was no trouble for him to just change into a necrofriggian and move strait to the surface. After a bit of laughably pathetic hand to hand combat between him and Specific's private, he transformed into a Galvanic Mechamorph he called Upgrade to decidedly downgrade the drilling rig, into pieces.

It wasn't much longer before Ben 10k returned with a sheep around his shoulders. "Removed the power source! Vidlink to Dextopia Science Center, Mr. Scotsman!" The elderly Scotsman did as told. The projected image changed from the ruins of the drilling rig to the group of scientists all looking around rather embarrassed.

"By my count that was ten minutes and thirty-six seconds, Dexter!" Ben shouted at the screen, possibly unaware that all this did was make the sound screechy and annoying on the other end thanks to the poor fidelity of the speakers.

"Yes, I suppose congratulations are in order. That is easily a minute better than your old record. I suppose you'll want another medal for being fast," said the older Dexter without enthusiasm.

"Yes I am pretty fast!" Ben boasted.

"So your wife wasn't lying about that," the grade school oooh's from both sides of the conversation were easily audible.

Later in the day, the younger Ben and Dexter met up at Hero Square. Dexter looked a bit more sheepish than usual, but managed to squeak out the first words of the conversation, "I'm sorry for what I will say back there."

Ben hadn't really thought much of it, honestly, "Oh, hey, don't worry about it. I'm sure it was just competitive banter. Learn anything today?"

"How poorly everything works together," Dexter responded.

"Huh, you too, eh?" Ben asked. "Wonder if there's a reason for that?"

"Possibly," Dexter said unenthusiastically, "Did you manage to learn anything else?"

"I have a son named Kenneth, apparently. You?"

"Sometime in the next thirty years, Professor Utonium actually becomes my father."

"Woah, cool, another time travel thing?" Ben asked enthusiastically. Dexter shook his head. Ben thought about it for a minute longer than, perhaps, he should have needed to. "Oh, wow, good going, man. Which one?"

"Don't know, don't care. It's completely irrelevant to our reason for being here," Dexter snapped.

"I thought we were here to see how cool and respected you were," realizing that even that might not have worked out, Ben added, "and sorry about that."

"Yes, well, it's changed a little, hasn't it?"

"Well, sure," Ben thought a second, "Let's go on home Dex, we can solve the problem then."

"Yes, and we can leave ourselves in the future in a disorganized mess without the benefit of knowing exactly what went wrong." Dexter rubbed his temples, "No, I think it might benefit everyone if we stay here a while and try to solve their problems too. If today is typical, I sincerely doubt they'll have much of a go at it alone."

The two got up to examine some more of the hologram statues, "Besides, I think we kind of owe it to them."

ADDENDUM: While I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, it's pretty necessary for setting up an introduction to how this crapsack underworld works. If I do next chapter what I plan to do, it should be similar but better.

Honestly, never thought I'd be writing fanfiction again after 8 years of writing original work, but it's pretty fun, and I'm meeting interesting people. Fanfiction's nice in that you don't have to really rope readers into the world you've created, which has benefits and risks. All the same, thanks guys.


	6. Ego Trips

Ms. Foster didn't gladly oblige Dexter and Ben in giving them some paper, but did anyway because she couldn't think of a valid reason not to. The two worked their entire afternoon on what was at first a fairly lengthy list originally named, "The Two of You are Destroying the Future and Here's Why".

The second part was somewhat simpler, Dexter running their statement by Ben repeatedly to see how much he understood.

"Wait, but won't I remember everything from earlier?" Ben suggested.

"Oh my gosh, you're right!" Dexter acted surprised at himself, "Quick, Ben, reiterate any point from our list."

"The doctors all need... new haircuts," Ben squeaked out.

"Very impressive, Benjamin. I think we're ready to start."

The practice wasn't terribly strenuous. At first, anything Ben couldn't repeat back was stricken or rewritten, leaving, eventually, a much simpler, less wordy, and, for the most part, shorter list. The next day, after breakfast, they presented their ideas to themselves.

The reaction wasn't positive. It wasn't as though they'd expected themselves to be receptive to criticism, but they figured it wasn't going to be outright rejected.

"But competing is what we do! Don't you two compete?" Ben 10k asked.

"Sure, but we've never done it when the world was at stake!" the younger Ben said.

"Eh…" said the younger Dexter.

"Most of the time," added Ben. "Plus, why in the world are the two of you working apart? We've done some of our best work together!"

"And besides," said the other Dexter, "There are plenty of scientists with great tactical minds, and great soldiers with scientific minds, yourself among them, Benjamin!"

Dexter and Ben, the elders, indicated the way they'd been doing business for years had worked out alright so far and, sure, Aku was still out there destroying the world like it was his playground. But they'd made a city that was self sufficient, had remained safe, and that was important.

Dexter, the younger, countered that, no, in fact, that was not sufficient. Science is about progress and maybe he wouldn't believe it in thirty years, but he did now. The maintenance of the status quo, he continued, is antithetical to progress.

Idealism, the older Ben suggested, isn't so much useful or important and that it's more important to remain grounded.

The younger Dexter and Ben shut their mouths and continued with their day as though nothing had happened. That night they did not return to the Foster Home.

Ben asked Dexter why it was they didn't just go back home. Honestly, he couldn't really understand Dexter's explanation that involved the universe changing with every moment they were in the future or something and… And Dexter said… Ben's memory trailed off at this point. He'd ask later if it was terribly important.

Ben had gone to sleep on Dexter's slightest insistence inside the remains of "that Jawa Sandcrawler looking thing" that the older Ben had destroyed the previous day. Because he was still fairly young, Ben didn't feel anything as Dexter worked diligently through the night.

Sometime, early in the morning before the sun rose, the two departed in something much more streamlined. Before he went to sleep himself, Dexter explained how to operate the machine and what to stop for. Then Dexter crashed, because he'd been awake for twenty-two hours at this point, and was happy to have a small reprieve, even if it meant letting Ben break in a machine he couldn't personally attest to the quality of.

Travel had been so much simpler, even instantaneous, with Monkey Skyway or S.C.A.M.P.E.R., but never this awesome. Whatever Dexter had made, it had a giant drill on the front. Dexter had made a point to have Ben drive through a mountain, so they couldn't be tracked from the air.

Hours passed until Dexter awoke. Dexter suggested they surface now and change course a bit. Ben couldn't believe his friend would have a destination in mind already, but when he asked, it made sense. Their destination, Nowhere, was in the middle of nowhere, and the odds of it having been significantly affected by the events of the past thirty years were far lower.

When they did, by an amazing set of narrative coincidences, arrive on its outskirts, Dexter made another couple of suggestions. The first was to change clothes because there was a good chance they might be recognized. While Dexter looked more street than ever, his labcoat was a tad tight around the shoulders for his friend.

The second was to take anything they wanted to keep with them, because the giant sandcrawler thing was a liability on the surface, and it was powered by Dexter's electrowrench, which he wasn't just going to leave lying around where anyone could get it.

The machine coasted along under the pressure of its own weight, crushing someone's vehicle. The car's uninsured middle aged owner rolled out of it in the nick of time, "Watch where you're going, ya fool!"

"Man, this place has barely changed at all," said Ben.

"Couldn't say. I've never been here," replied Dexter.

"Wait, but, hold on. If you've never been here, how'd you manage to find it?" Ben asked.

"I imagined that if we just got incredibly lost we'd wind up in the middle of Nowhere. It appears to have worked. Now come on. Our absence has surely not gone unnoticed. We need to brush up on current events."

On the other side of town, a man peered out his tower with his telescope. He wondered aloud to himself who these interlopers were and why they had come to his unhappy domain.

Dexter and Ben had procured a couple of newspapers in an illicit manner, flipping through them for any bits of information that might be useful. It wasn't long before they did.

"Hey Dex, check it! We know someone!" Ben pointed out an article.

Dexter read the headline aloud, "President Uno renews treaty with Aku. Yes, well, too bad it's not a friend."

"I dunno, man. Maybe that's the only way he lets him keep power," Ben suggested. "So what now."

"Now we…" before Dexter could finish his sentence, some projectile crashed at his feet.


	7. The Land of Zalost

"It's okay guys, they couldn't have gotten far!" Ben lied to his troops. Set up a parameter around the forest, report back to me if you find anything interesting. He walked over to his friend, "Do you remember anything useful, Dex?"

"No! I still just remember wanting to get lost!" Dexter clutched his head to see if any of the new old memories were of any practical use.

"They'd just wind up in the middle of nowhere! They'd..." Ben paused.

"We wouldn't..."

"Betcha we would!"

"How?" Dexter asked, "It would take weeks on foot!"

"Yeah, for you, maybe!" boasted Ben.

Before Dexter could think up a witty comeback, or, alternatively, about twenty-five minutes later, one of Ben's troops returned.

"Rada! Rada rada rada Rada Rada rada rada rada rada!" the rock monster flailed his arms in the general direction he was referring to with great disbelief.

"That's impossible!" said Ben. "I removed the power source! It wasn't going anywhere!"

"Apparently you've misjudged my ability again!" Dexter gloated.

In the middle of nowhere, things had just gone from bad to worse for the younger Ben and Dexter. Despite some hasty last minute efforts at disguising themselves, they hadn't gone unnoticed. Poorly aimed cannonballs fell all around them, at least, they thought they were cannonballs. Whatever they were, they'd impact the ground and disintegrate without leaving any shrapnel behind.

Ben wasted no time turning into the intangible Big Chill, carrying his friend invisibly through the sky in the hopes of identifying the source of this attack.

It didn't take long. "Come to think of it," the necrofriggian thought aloud about the time one of the cannonballs roared through him, "I don't actually remember that tower being there..."

"Great information for an earlier time!" Dexter shouted, trying to fight off motion sickness.

Sparing no time, Ben used his command of entropy to freeze every hole he could find in the tower's exterior. He landed admiring his work, confident in its, truthfully temporary, integrity. It was therefore unfortunate for him that he hadn't spotted every opening. He realized this about the time one of the cannon balls plunged into him.

Although gray as the sky on an overcast day, Ben didn't appear injured. It wasn't until he began moping that Dexter understood what had just occurred.

"Let's go take that tower down permanently!" Dexter, considering his personality, ordered.

"I dunno man, seems so pointless..."

Dexter never took "no" for an answer. Indeed, that often resulted in more of his harrowing adventures. It never occurred to him that people told him "no" because what he wanted wasn't in his best interest. This, however, was not one of those times.

"Come on, ya big baby," Dexter pulled his friend along because, though he wasn't very strong, Ben didn't resist.

Dexter melted the ice off of entrance with his electrowrench. It struck him as odd that the entrance was actually open, but it didn't stop him from entering with reckless abandon and fury.

The interior was mostly wooden scaffolding, with a spiraling staircase coiling around the walls. Dexter wasted no time in dragging his friend up to whatever was at the top. Ben slipped and missed steps occasionally, but fortunately, Dexter's center of gravity was low enough to keep them from toppling over.

Dexter burst through the hatch to the next floor with all the strength and agility afforded to him by the laws of cartoon physics.

"Alright, what's the big idea," he said to, what appeared to be, an empty room.

Behind him, a man cleared his throat. It was definitely a man, by the sound. Very gutteral and twisted. And when he said, "This is so embarrassing!" his gender was solidified.

"Who do you think you are shooting at people like that?" Dexter asked in his nasty voice.

"Zalost! Dr. Zalost."

Dexter didn't care, "What did you do to my friend?"

"Ah a very good question," Dr. Zalost said, scratching his chin. "Exactly what I'm about to do to you!"

The tunnel had been slightly hard to find, but deep tank treads were unmistakable from any angle. Fortunately, all the dirt and rock that had been cleared by the machine had simply vanished into a netherworld that no one ever really though much of, giving General Tennyson's exploratory forces an easy in for their tracking mission.

"I kinda wonder why they didn't go themselves," wondered Noah.

"I totally get it!" said Rex, surprisingly effortlessly, neverminded the speed at which he was flying, nor the weight of his friend, locked in his arms. "They're probably just upset that they grow up into such big jerks."

"Yeah, like Dexter wasn't a jerk back then," Noah said, also in apparent contradiction to velocity and gravity.

"You know what I mean," Rex dropped the conversation when he noticed the light up ahead.

After being pelted with about ten of those weird cannonballs, Dexter got bored of standing around and shot Dr. Zalost with his electrowrench. The misshapen and fairly frail scientist flew back and fell to the ground. Dexter pulled him up from the ground, slightly.

"Now how do you fix what you did to my friend?" Dexter demanded.

"Of course! Of course!" Dr. Zalost raised his head. A disconcerting grin spread from cheek to cheek.

Dexter, being a fairly smart individual, managed to turn his head when a fairly large rat hit him with a plank of wood. The rat took Dexter's unconscious body to a human sized, slanted, wooden table, restraining his limbs. Ben, on the other hand, played with some dust on the floor.

He came to not too much later, those weird intangible cannon balls dropping on him every so often. Before he could ask, "What the heck is going on?", the sad scientist answered.

"I don't know why you are impervious to my misery, but you won't be for long if I've anything to say about it."

"What do you know about misery?" Dexter snapped.

"I beg your pardon?" asked Dr. Zalost

"Did your scientific curiosity destroy the world? Are you the sole man responsible for countless loss of life, property, environmental damage?" Dexter yelled at his captor. "What's wrong? Mommy not love you enough? Daddy not give you that car you wanted when you were sixteen and now you get your jollies by killing all joy in others?"

Dr. Zalost snapped back, "You will regret those words!"

"Oh, what's the matter. Did baby's feelings get hurt. What are you gonna do, you imbecile?"

"This," Dr. Zalost said, pulling a conveniently located lever, pouring a deluge of cannonballs onto Dexter. As they disappeared, it became apparent that they had finally been effective. Dexter had turned to cold, blackened stone.

Deducing the location of their superiors' inferiors wasn't very difficult. They were in Nowhere after all. When they weren't in the gigantic sheep-powered sandcrawler, they figured they were probably in the gigantic tower thing, whose architecture suggested it was "probably built by one seriously bad dude," as Rex eloquently put it.

Rex decided to splinter the floor by flying him and Noah through it, because it was more fun than climbing the dangerous and agonizingly long flight of stairs to the top.

"My floor!" Dr. Zalost raged before his new best enemy landed, "You've ruined my floor!"

Rex quickly surveyed the area, seeing Dexter turned to stone and a gray Ben wearing a labcoat and pouting over how his dirt art had just been ruined by some flying splinters. "Oh well," Rex landed himself and his friend, "look at the bright side. Now you have an observation deck. Put up a banister around it, so you don't fall in."

"Banisters," Noah corrected, "are only found on stairs."

"Ah, right," Rex thought, "another thing: you should probably put one of those banisters around your staircase. Someone could fall and get hurt."

"Yeah, seriously. When Aku took over the world, did he deregulate OSHA, too?" Noah asked.

"ENOUGH!" Dr. Zalost shouted. "The two of you are making me upset! You wouldn't like me when I'm upset."

"I don't like you now!" Noah rushed at Dr. Zalost. He didn't really think the rat was going to do anything. He too turned gray and depressed.

Rex clenched his fists, "What did you do to him?"

"What I do to everyone happier than me. Now all he shall know is despair and misery!" Dr. Zalost gloated. He didn't even notice Rex touching him, let alone the weird blue circuity that began to coarse his body. "No! What are you doing."

"Well, if you don't want everyone to be happier than you, I'll just have to make you incredibly happy won't I?" Rex continued to elaborate, swatting Ratty away, "Right now, the nanites that are in your body are racing to every part of your brain's limbic system, where they will stimulate the production of dopamine for the rest of your life."

Dr. Zalost fell backwards before being dragged downstairs by his faithful rat, Ratty. At once Noah and Ben returned to normal.

"Rex, am I glad to see you!" Ben shot over to the blacked Dexter. "They did something to him. Dexter can you hear me?" Ben undid the ropes on Dexter's arms and righted him on the ground.

"Euuh," replied the statue.

"One euuh for yes, two euuh for no," Noah chuckled.

"Talking him out of it probably isn't the worst idea ever," Rex decided.

"Come on Dex!" Ben shouted, "You can get out of this, probably. When Lord Fuse invaded Earth, who had the tools and talent to stop him?" The statue did nothing. "I know I never told you this, even when you were a manipulative jerk, no, especially when you were a manipulative jerk, I always though I made a great choice in choosing my best friend." The statue continued to not do anything. "Come on, Dex, the world needs your genius again. What is today?"

The statue started to crack, "Today is..." the material encasing his limbs crumbled, "a fine day..." the torso turned to flaky dust, "for SCIENCE!" Dexter's head finally free of its enclosure.

After a little debating on whether or no they wanted to, Dexter and Ben decided that they would give themselves a second shot. Dexter explained their suggestions, because Ben didn't remember them.

"I like it," Rex thought, "When we get back to base, we'll get everyone together and tell them what we want."

"You just want to work with Dr. Holiday again," Noah suggested.

"That's great," said Ben, "but how do we get back? The Jawa Sandcrawler thing is pretty much busted now."

Dexter had spent their time scanning the room, and had come to one conclusion, "Like this!" Pressing a few buttons, the tower lurched forward and westward.


	8. Gooey Aliens That Control Your Mind

The tower of Dr. Zalost had been scrapped and its materials recycled. It contained more than enough wood to make the Kids Next Door happy for months. Earth, however, no longer had a Kids Next Door, Ben heard and Dexter learned through a passing conversation of little other importance.

Rex and Noah had a quick talk with their comrades who all, in turn, had a fairly big conversation with Dexter and Ben, the older. Apparently this had worked and the next day, the younger versions were assured, would be different.

"And," the older Ben added, "if you need to disguise yourselves, we do have uniforms you can steal."

"Alright!" the younger Ben said loudly, malapropos of appropriateness, "Sorry, but your shoulder width is, like, ten inches smaller than mine, Dex."

After a dinner, which, despite the chef responsible, was surprisingly filling and delicious. This was primarily because they had not eaten in a day. Dexter and Ben retired to their room where, Ben was determined, they were going to reflect.

"Hey Dex," Ben asked, "What did you mean you'd destroyed the world with scientific curiosity?"

Dexter chuckled nervously, "Heh heh, you mean you heard that?"

"Yeah, I mean, when did you destroy the world?"

Dexter sighed, "Alright, Benjamin, it's a bit of a long story."

Ben decided, "I think we have time."

Dexter sighed and began, "It all started several years ago. I sent out a homing beacon in hopes of being the first to discover extraterrestrial life."

"Way ahead of you!" Ben noted.

"Yes, well, a funny thing happened. Afterwards I was out looking at the stars, pleading to them to deliver me proof of alien life. Almost magically, a meteor landed directly in front of me. From it emerged a gooey green alien lifeform."

"Single cellular life, bummer. Thought you were a scientist? Shoulda known most of the life in the universe is single cellular."

"Not quite single cellular. I captured it for further study, running analysis after analysis on it. Under the microscope I noticed the tissue sample had the strange ability to assimilate other organisms. As I began another tissue sample for DNA analysis, the gooey alien escaped its confinement. I grabbed it, but it split and the pieces ducked into a nearby pipe."

"And so you always wore purple cleaning gloves, so the next time you absolutely had to hold onto something, it'd slip though your fingers." Dexter glared at Ben. "What? That's been bothering me for a long time."

"...As I searched for it, it sought out other organisms to possess. I'm not entirely certain how it managed to infect my family, but very soon they were creating a transceiver with parts in my own lab, carved from blueprints carved in a table."

"Guess no one told them about pencils," Ben found this detail fairly strange.

"I fought my own family, rendering them unconscious, and killing the gooey aliens as they tried to escape once more. Then I destroyed the transceiver. I was almost positive I had destroyed the transceiver before it was activated."

"And you probably did." Then the purpose of the conversation dawned on Ben, " I still don't get how you destroyed the planet."

"It was a few years later when the first terrafusers fell to earth. I analyzed the fusion matter under the microscope and, much to my horror, it behaved the exact same way the gooey aliens had."

"Wait, hold up," Ben interjected, "what are you saying?"

Dexter continued, "I'm the one who tipped off Lord Fuse to the presence of Earth. What I found was a scout ship. The transceiver was obviously a beacon of some kind to help Lord Fuse find us. Because of me, many people died, and it's only a mercy I had the technology to defeat the invasion."

Ben let some time pass before talking again, "You know, Dex, it's not really your fault. You must have destroyed the transceiver."

"How do you know?"

"They sent the probe here in the first place, so, I mean, obviously they knew where we were." Ben relaxed with a small grunt, "We're just lucky you found them first and stopped them. If it'd been anyone else's ridiculously advanced labratory, Fuse would have been here sooner and we might not have been able to fight its invasion off."

"What about my original signal?" Dexter asked, having not expected his laid bare guilt to be brushed aside.

"I'll be the Plumbers blocked it. Besides, I have it on pretty good authority that someone else told Lord Fuse where Earth was."


End file.
